many prophecies were commonly known among the Jews, esteemed by them as the word of God, and preserved with extraordinary care; and that in these prophecies it is declared very plainly that a great person should arise to save sinners, and that he should do and suffer those very things which, upon having recourse to history, it is found Jesus Christ did do, and did suffer; then this is also a good argument to show that Jesus is the Christ, and a good reason to give to any man who asketh why you depend upon him to be your Saviour.

Again when this gospel, thus externally attested, comes to be examined, it appears to be, for its own sake, every way entitled to credit. As it is said by the preachers of it to come from God, so upon investigation it will be found to be worthy of God; for there is the wisdom of God and the holiness of God displayed in every page. It contains such a remedy for the miseries of mankind as none but God could have conceived or planned. It is a religion which exactly suits our case. It is just what sinners wanted. It is all that they wanted. It is exactly and perfectly calculated to answer the ends for which it is declared to have been promulgated - to display the exceeding glory of God's love, and to make men good and happy. It is said, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament

showeth his handiwork ;" and truly he must be a fool who saith in his heart, "there is no God," after he hath opened his eyes, and hath considered the frame of the visible creation. But still more forcibly, I think, doth the Bible declare the glory of God, and evince itself to be his handiwork; so that here we have another good answer, taken from internal evidence, to the question, "Why do you hope for salvation by the gospel?" We believe it to be God's gospel; for we have examined it, and we find it to be so great, so noble, so merciful, so wise, so holy, so perfect, that we could as soon believe a human being to have made the sun, moon, and stars, as imagine such a gospel to be a cunningly-devised fable.

But it is very plain that the poor and unlearned, though they may be practically much better Christians than many who are looked upon as their superiors, will not always have capacity to see the full force of these reasonings, nor ability to defend their religion (defensible as it surely is) on these grounds. And though these are sound arguments, and the fittest arguments which can be used to stop the mouth of gainsayers, yet millions, if they had no other answer to give when asked the reason of their hope in Christ, might easily be baffled and much shaken not, indeed, by solid objections, but by

the artifices and specious false reasoning of unbelieving and ungodly men.

Therefore, if every man ought (as the apostle asserts) to have his answer ready, we must look to proof and arguments of another kind. And we shall surely find that every real Christian, be he learned or be he ignorant, provided he be but truly and practically a Christian, hath a proof within himself of the truth of Christ's religion;-a proof built, not upon external evidence of the truth of Scripture, but upon personal experience.

So saith St. John, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." * Not as the words are sometimes interpreted, the witness that he is a true believer, (though that also is true, and may, by consequence, be shown to be so from this very passage, and abundantly from other passages,) but the witness to the truth of that which he believes, to the truth of the gospel, to the truth of Christ's being the Son of God, and his gospel the power of God unto salvation.

In addition to all that can be alleged from prophecy, from miracles, from the internal excellency of the Scriptures, the true believer hath a witness in himself that he hath believed upon good grounds.

II. Let us inquire what this witness is; it is the personal experience of a death unto sin, and a

* 1 John v. 10.

new birth unto righteousness, wrought in the believer's own soul by divine grace. For illustration of this, I will state a case. A person living in a christian country like our own, cannot avoid hearing of the Bible, and of the subject of it. He hears that it is called the Word of God, and that it professes to point out to mankind the way and method of salvation. This person, we may imagine, sees many round him who profess to believe the Scriptures. He sees some reputedly prudent men zealously employed in striving to bring their brethren to the belief of them, and some so fully persuaded in their own minds, that they really do take the Scriptures for the rule and guide of their conduct. This we will suppose excites his attention, and he is prevailed upon to read and hear the Scriptures for himself.

He finds in them much curious history, many strikingly valuable precepts-many wonders of various kinds; but especially, if he reads with tolerable diligence, he finds a very interesting picture of himself. If multitudes of plain passages are to be understood according to their plain and literal meaning, then he is represented as a wretched sinner, lying under the wrath of God; morally unfit for heavenly blessedness, and unable to make himself that holy character which this same book says he ought to be. But he finds further that God is stated to have sent his

Son Jesus Christ into the world to die instead of sinners, and to purchase pardon, and eternal glory for as many as shall take him for their Saviour. That he afterwards rose from the grave, went up into heaven, and thence sent down the Holy Ghost to be a principle of new life in the hearts of sinners, to sanctify and cleanse their very natures, to enable them to love and to practise godliness, and to hate and eschew iniquity, and so to make them meet, or qualify them, for tasting the pure and holy pleasures which are at God's right hand for ever.

This a diligent inquirer will find to be contained in Scripture. Having found it, he may despise it, as many do-he may see nothing in it that is interesting to himself, or he may persuade himself that the literal and obvious sense of the passages is not the true meaning, but that they may be explained to mean something very different-though he cannot at present see clearly how that is to be done. But, on the other hand, it may please God to bless his reading to him, and if it does, he will assuredly feel at least some alarm at the thought of continuing in his present state, and some desire to be more fully instructed in the way of coming to God by Christ. Conscience will tell him that he is certainly a sinner, and being afraid of the wrath to come, he will resolve and strive (at first, in all likelihood,